Can AI Crack the Code on Peptide Drugs?

TandemAI and Perpetual join forces to revolutionize peptide drug R&D, combining AI, lab automation, and expert leadership to speed breakthroughs.

15 Jun 2025

TandemAI and Perpetual Medicines have merged to create a unified platform for peptide drug discovery, aiming to shorten development cycles in a segment of medicine known for complexity and delay.

The combined company, which retains the TandemAI name, will integrate artificial intelligence, physics-based modelling, and laboratory automation to streamline peptide drug research, from design to synthesis and testing. The move reflects growing investor and industry interest in technologies that can reduce the time and cost of bringing treatments to market.

Peptides, which are short chains of amino acids, have gained prominence as potential treatments for conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, their intricate structures and susceptibility to degradation have made development particularly difficult.

Jeff He, TandemAI’s co-founder and chief executive, said the merger builds on the company’s founding vision “to transform drug discovery by enabling broad access to the most advanced AI and physics-based computational tools”.

Perpetual Medicines will operate as a separate division under its existing leadership. Kerry L. Blanchard, co-founder, chair and chief executive of Perpetual, will lead the peptide discovery division, alongside Ved Srivastava as chief scientific officer.

The company plans to move more than ten peptide-based drug candidates into clinical trials over the next year. While large pharmaceutical groups such as Novo Nordisk and Amgen continue to lead in peptide therapeutics, TandemAI is positioning itself as a more agile alternative by combining digital tools with automated lab capabilities.

The merger also aligns with a broader industry shift toward integrated biotech platforms that consolidate drug development functions and appeal to a range of partners, including smaller biopharma firms and academic labs.

TandemAI joins a growing group of companies betting that computational advances and robotic automation will help overcome historical barriers in peptide drug research. While integration challenges remain, the newly combined platform could lower entry costs and accelerate discovery timelines in a sector long constrained by complexity.